Chapter Text
You looked down at your task list, tapping each unfinished item with the clicker end of your pen. Help restock the prize counter, drop off some mail at the daycare security desk, run the new performance disc up to the sound booth before lunch, and pick up the end of month reports from the office behind Monty Golf. Manageable for a busy Friday.
“Hey, get your head out of the clouds cadet. This just dropped on your plate.”
Your manager’s gruff voice pulled you from your organizing thoughts, and you looked up from the shared desk in the administrative office. You scowled as he dropped a stack of collated reams of forms and waivers in front of you. “Uh…”
“Run these up to Mazercise, make sure you show Chica where they’re at.”
“Alrighty then,” you sighed, scrawling the new task onto your list. “Anything else?”
He ran a hand over his moustache and short-trimmed beard. “No, and you better hope it stays that way. Buzz me when you’re done.”
You nodded, standing to pocket your list and take the stack of paperwork over to the mail counter. A few bits of mail and the performance disc seemed to settle on the stack of paper steadily enough for you to carry it all out together. No sense in running clear across the entire PizzaPlex more than once if you didn’t have to. Now the place was just too damn big.
They’d capitalized on the four years they’d been shut down after the original collapsed. The news had said it was a sinkhole and electrical fire but nobody who was familiar enough with the ongoing Fazbear Weirdness bought that at face value. During the renovations a lot of things were added in order to breathe fresh air into a familiar place. Mazercise gained two fully functional dance studios and a smoothie bar, Fazer Blast got an upgraded course with two additional laser tag courses that were rotated at random, Monty Golf got a lazy river and open-faced dive pool, and Roxy Raceway got sportier looking carts and a full day spa. The Superstar Daycare got some much-needed TLC also, and looked less like a two-year-old’s handmade hellscape and more like an inviting and interactive place of fun and learning.
All without sacrificing the 80’s motif, of course.
A lot of newer games got added to the arcades, Bonnie Bowl – which now had its beloved mascot back – had a roller rink, the existing restaurants were all updated and new ones were put in with a few of the attractions, and the old theater under the daycare was remodeled so the stage could be moved to the previously vacant space in the Atrium. It got more use as an in-house comedy club for the adults.
In fact, a lot of the PizzaPlex had been redesigned so that it could entertain adults only in the evenings, which was probably how the whole reno project was financed.
Your feet had carried you dutifully to the daycare, and you weaved between parents on their way in and out. It was barely ten in the morning so the daycare was empty except for a few parents with their kids perusing the party rooms and getting sales pitches from the wandering Entertainment Agents. From the balcony you could see two security personnel sitting at the desk, and you made your way down, arms already beginning to grow sore.
You hadn’t gotten three steps into the daycare area proper before an excitedly shrill voice floated down behind you.
“Hello there, sunshine~!”
The Daycare Attendant, whom you usually referred to simply as Sun or Moon depending, had gotten a few aesthetic changes. Mostly in the face, as the static expression had started to unsettle more and more modern parents. Now, he sported a sleek screenlike surface with a protruding nose that was capable of smiles and frowns and looks of care and comfort. He’d also had his personality coding tweaked a little to keep him mellow under distress. Moon was also slightly less creepy and nightmarish to make for more productive naptimes.
You turned to face him, a warm smile rounding your cheeks. “Hey, Sun, how are you?”
He beamed, clasping his hands as his faceplate and sun rays twirled. “Excited for another fun-filled Friday! Are you staying to play?”
“I wish I could, but Fridays are usually just as busy for me as they are for you. I’m just here to drop off some mail,” you said, falling in step beside him as you walked briskly over to the security desk, eager to set your paperwork down for a moment.
With an overly dramatic sigh he obliged your schedule, setting his fists firmly on both hips. “Oh well, I guess someone has to keep this place running so I can keep loving my job~”
Out of everyone, Sunnydrop always gave you the most credit for your position. It was a mishmash of administrative assistant, floor attendant, recordkeeper, and general Jack of All Trades. Basically, you got all the odd jobs that weren’t important enough for the people with titles to do but still needed to be done to keep the Plex afloat. It made you one of the most important nobody employees because you’d cemented yourself in your work so thoroughly that if you ever left, the place might actually have to shut down until a replacement was found.
But of course they didn’t pay you like it.
You called out to Sun as you left, then headed to the Atrium as quick as your legs could powerwalk.
The Atrium looked pretty much the same, but bigger. More space for more seating, mostly, with the influx of attendance after the grand reopening. And it was busy as hell.
Thankfully you were already on the second floor, and most people hung around on the ground floor in the morning, but there were enough wanderers to make even the second floor feel busier than usual. You made a beeline for the escalators across from you and kept your head down, hoping to avoid any unnecessary human interaction. Luckily the heavy stack of paper was a deterrent all by itself, and you made it to the sound booth without any trouble. You twisted to press the badge at your hip against the card reader and slid through the automatic door. The old sound booth had been open, which someone had eventually decided was not a good idea, so now it was housed in a proper booth with a door to keep nosy parents and children away from the massively expensive equipment.
The only guy there was the only sound technician you’d really made friends with, and he jumped excitedly in his chair.
“Oh thank god, you’re early. This the new one?” He reached for the disc on top of your stack of papers, then took them out of your hands and set them aside.
“Yeah, that’s it.”
He flipped the case over between his fingers, studying the stage notes written on the back. The jouncing of his leg was enough to make his short ponytail of dreadlocks bounce.
You eyed him, then the two empty cups of coffee he’d gotten from the café downstairs. “Hey Joel, do you want me to get you some water or something?”
Joel whipped his head around with a ‘hm?’ and eyed you without an ounce of understanding of what you just said.
“Yeah, I’m gonna get you some water, ease off the cold brew, Joel.” You laughed as he rolled his eyes, and reached for the stack of papers again.
As you turned to head out he stopped you. “Before you go, I need your unprofessional opinion, if you please.”
‘Unprofessional opinion’ was code for something pertaining to adult only evening hours. “Oh boy, do I wanna know?”
Joel cackled under his breath and fished a sheet of paper out of the pile of mess around the main monitor. “We’re updating the DJ’s Serato with new music, we can only add in a hundred new songs at a time otherwise he gets a little glitchy, and I’m torn between two.”
This ought to be good. “Okay, what do you got.”
“Squidward Nose by cupcakKe or Man Areas by Johnny McGovern. What do you think?” he asked, a grin of self-awareness showing his effort to keep down a laugh.
“For fuck’s sake,” you sighed, shaking your head. “I guess that depends on who you want hogging the stage. Personally, I’d go with cupcakKe.”
Joel nodded with thanks, then shooed you about your job while insisting he could get his own damn water. You just rolled your eyes with a smile.
Thankfully, Mazercise was on the same floor, but was also the only populated attraction on the third level. Chica was a big proponent of rising early for a workout. The morning Zumba class had just let out, and you caught the animatronic waving out the patrons from one of the studio doorways.
Actually, the word animatronic felt wrong these days. Just as the daycare attendant had gotten a touchup, so had the others, and way more than just a little tweak. They looked real now. And in a lot of ways, they were. All five of them had been stripped down to their endoskeletons, and practically rebuilt from the inside out with faux flesh and muscles. The upgrade had been so drastic that major shareholders and renovation donors had been invited to meet them personally to advertise by word of mouth. Plus, they could eat now if they wanted, which probably had more to do with Chica than anything else.
Chica’s jaw and shoulder feathers flared excitedly when she finally saw you approaching, and she gasped. “I feel like I haven’t seen you for ages!” she said, “We were all starting to wonder if you still worked here.” She graciously took the stack of forms from you, and you walked her to the back office.
“Oh don’t worry, if something ever happened to me you’d know,” you laughed, holding the door to the office open for the other. She clucked when you pointed at the tall cabinet against the far wall. “These should be collated into groups, so I’ll separate them out and you can grab whatever you need if there’s no one here to get them for you.”
It only took a minute, and you let Chica read over the forms and waivers while you organized them into piles. All of the animatronics were constantly updated with the current terms and conditions, but Chica was always a little more thorough than the others. She liked to know exactly what it was her ‘little chickies’ were signing.
Once you were confident in your explanation and organizing of the updated forms and waivers, she happily walked you back to the front.
“So, what’s left for you today?”
She always asked, and made it sound like more than just a polite gesture. “So far just helping with restock and picking up the reports from Monty Golf. If I’m lucky that’ll be it, but I know you know how Fridays are.”
Chica nodded sagely, folding her softly feathered arms over the spandex leotard. “I certainly do. If you get everything done for the day maybe you can come see the new show! First one is at four and there’s employee seating~” she sang, hoping to goad your attendance.
You smiled and nodded, tucking your hands in your pockets. “I heard, how does it compare to the old sets?”
She shrugged and smiled, looking pointedly off to the side. “Well, it’s new, and there’s more special effects. But I still don’t think it compares to the evening performance.”
“Will anything ever?” you asked, snickering as Chica shook her head with a laugh.
“Probably not. Good luck with the rest of your shift, chickadee, I’ll look for you in the crowd later!” She waved you off with her cutesy pet name, and yelled after you to remind you to eat on your lunch break. Chica looked out for people that way.
It took you a solid ten minutes to get from the Atrium to the prize counter, and you didn’t recognize the girls working but they were nice enough. It took the full hour before and after your lunch break to finish restock, but once it was done it was done.
Now that you only had one, relatively simple task left, your anxiety reared its head and fed you all sorts of stressful scenarios of how the rest of your day was going to get fucked over by some surprise new responsibility. It wasn’t a fearful sort of anxiety, more like an overly intense sense of anticipation for the unknown, but it was still enough to keep your chest tight as you made your way back to the Atrium.
You flashed your employee badge to the floor attendant in front of the elevators at Monty Golf and he stepped aside to let you pass. A family of five, all three kids somewhere between six and ten, rode with you with you. The youngest was a girl with thick prescription glasses, and she was clutching her Freddy Fazbear plushie to her chest for dear life. Poor thing.
With a soft smile you kneeled down and gave her your name with a wave. “What’s your name?”
She looked up at her mother with uncertainty, who encouraged her to be polite to the nice PizzaPlex worker. “Uh… um… Madison.”
You smiled wider. “It’s nice to meet you, Madison. Is this your first time in Monty Golf?”
Madison nodded, hiding her face against the stuffed Freddy.
“You look awful nervous, have you never played before? I promise it’s super easy, you’ll probably beat mom and dad.” When the little girl didn’t seem to be quelled by your words of encouragement, the oldest brother piped up.
“She’s scared of Monty.”
Oh. Well, that was understandable. Plenty of adults skirted him like a snake handler at a parade, but you’d also seen enough kids warm up to him to think you could assuage her fear.
You gave her an understanding look. “He is pretty big, huh?” She nodded. “Well, he might look big and mean and scary, but I promise he’s really nice. And, I can tell you a secret if you want.” She looked suspicious at first, but when she saw her older brothers show interest, she leaned in close so you could whisper just to her. “Alligators have really sensitive noses, so if you’re brave enough you should give him a nose boop and see if it makes his tail wag.”
Madison gasped and giggled, nodding as she buried her face back into the stuffed Freddy.
You couldn’t blame her, Monty usually made you a little nervous. Not because he was big, or had a bit of a temper, or was a relentless flirt – which you hadn’t really experienced much of firsthand. Maybe you were just tapping into the collective nervousness a lot of people felt around him, it was certainly enough to make your still tight chest flutter uncomfortably and your stomach twist.
The family politely let you exit first, and you gave Madison a wave as her parents thanked you for your kindness. It hadn’t been part of your training, but you’d been around the place long enough to have picked up some techniques for handling kids of various ages. Those moments were the ones that made your job truly worth it, sometimes more so than getting to say you worked with highly intelligent animatronics.
Actually, sometimes when you were being funny on your days off you just told people you worked with animals.
You took the back hall around the main area, not wanting to fool with sidestepping kids running after stray golf balls or risk slipping on the floor next to the lazy river. Or, God forbid, run into an angry parent who was bitching that the snack bar only served alcohol after hours.
The back office was empty when you walked in, as it usually was. Most of the employees in Monty Golf were floor attendants, so only a handful of people besides you ever had a need to go back there. You eyed the row of filing cabinets along the wall and begrudgingly began to pick through them, pulling all the folders at the back of each and setting them in a neat pile on the empty work desk. Half an hour later you had a stack way too big to make one trip with, and you groaned. Maybe it was worth snagging an attendant and asking if they could take half so you didn’t have to waste time making two trips.
Usually there was a floater or two in each attraction who had the free time for stuff like that, so you headed into the main room and looked around.
Monty Golf was more than twice as big as it was before, with the stage area separating the minigolf from the lazy river. The whole place was still done up with subtropical foliage, which was all real now instead of fake, and the lighting had been appropriately adjusted to a more easily visible moodiness. The sounds of running water and recorded gator bellows filled in the gaps between screaming children. It was perhaps the least 80’s of all the Mega PizzaPlex, but the neon colors and patterns were still in abundance.
You were about to flag down an attendant when a swift movement out of the corner of your eye caught your attention. You recognized the younger of Madison’s two brothers dart off towards the ball pit with something fisted in one hand, and Madison seemed to have been left crying at the scene of the crime, no parents in sight. You noticed she didn’t have her glasses anymore, and her other brother was at a loss as to whether or not it was okay to leave her to find their parents. But before you could make up your own mind to act, something remarkable began to unfold.
Montgomery Gator, in all his imposing glory, had spotted the crying girl from nearly thirty yards away, and was already upon the scene before you could hardly blink. You were able to stay inconspicuous enough from about ten feet away to openly watch, too curious to move.
“Aw no, what’s with them cocodril tears, Cher?” His accent was so thick you could hear it from where you stood, and he was careful to keep a particular distance until the girl had warmed up to him. The older brother just looked at Monty in awe, speechless.
Madison shook fretfully and cried, probably unable to see, and when neither of them were forthcoming with an explanation, you swallowed the sharp ache in your chest and ignored the growing knot in your stomach, stepping forward. “I think I know what happened.”
The massive alligator turned to look at you from where he’d crouched down, and you mirrored his posture next to the sobbing girl, trying to ignore how much larger Monty was than you. “Hi Madison, do you remember me?” She didn’t respond, pressing her face harder into the teddy bear. You looked at the older brother. “What’s your name?”
“Tyler.”
“And the other brother?”
“Beau.”
You nodded, feeling Monty’s steady gaze on you from the corner of his eye. “Okay Tyler, why don’t you go find your mom and dad, we’ll stay here with Madison.”
The boy nodded, grateful for the instruction, but paused before he ran off. “Um, Beau took her glasses, so she can’t see anything.” Then he tapped his little sister on the shoulder. “Hey Mads, this is the lady from the elevator, she’s gonna sit with you okay? I’ll go find mom and dad.” Once she nodded he took off, satisfied with her safety.
Monty looked at you sideways. “Y’all know each other?”
Without being able to stop it, your cheeks warmed as he addressed you directly. You hadn’t had very many one-on-one conversations with Monty. “We took the same elevator.”
He nodded, looking back at the frightened girl who had now fallen onto her butt and hung her head to sob. “You see where the other kid went?”
“Ball pit,” you jerked your head behind you.
“On it,” he said, smiling with all his teeth. “A’ight lil’ miss Madison, how ‘bout I go fetch your glasses?”
She nodded limply, choking out a quiet ‘okay’ as you rubbed her back. You watched Monty disappear, slithering into the ball pit like a wild gator might a pond. His red mohawk stuck out enough for you to see, and he made his way to the center hut, surprising unsuspecting children on the way. It made you smile.
By now you couldn’t see him, he’d swam his way around the back side where the child-sized stairs were. He paused to listen, then crept slowly up the stairs low on his stomach. Some of the children close by had stopped to watch, and he gave them a wink with a finger pressed to his lips. He slunk forward, easing the end of his nose into view with his jaws parted, giving a low hiss that was indistinguishable from the ambient sounds.
One of the kids inside gasped, and Monty ascended the rest of the stairs and poked his head through the door in one fluid motion. All three boys inside hollered and yelled, squealing with laughter as they’d been found. Monty curled himself up at the top of the stairs, leaving his head inside so he wouldn’t be overheard.
“Well well well, what do we have here, huh? Looks like some stowaways, bandits maybe,” he joked, smirking as the boys looked excitedly between each other.
“Actually,” one said, “we’re fugitive pirates!”
Another clamped his hand over the boy’s mouth. “No, he’ll turn us in! He’s the law remember?”
One thing Monty never really tired of was a child’s imagination, and he’d always had a knack for rolling with a narrative. “Ain’t that right,” he drawled, accent thicker for dramatic effect. “Looks like I found me a band o’ robbers. You know what we do wit’ robbers down in Louisiana?”
They all shook their heads, trying to act serious.
“We feed ‘em to the swamp gators,” Monty growled, a wicked grin spreading along his maw. “And it jus’ so happens that Ah myself am the gator for the job.”
They all giggled, crudely pretending to act tough. The third, Madison’s brother Beau, shook his head with a real smart look on his face.
“We’ve heard that before and it hasn’t happened yet,” he said proudly, crossing his arms over his chest like he felt twice as big as he was. Madison’s glasses gleamed in his right hand.
Monty saw them right away. “Aw don’ worry, think we might be able to come to some sort of compromise.” The three boys looked at him skeptically. “Is that y’all’s latest prize?” He pointed to Beau’s right hand.
Beau, thinking he’d gotten enough on the gator’s good side to gloat, proudly showed off the pair of thick lenses. “Yup! I took these from my sister,” he chuffed, nose in the air.
“Uh huh, let me take a peek real quick.” Monty held his hand out and Beau dropped the pair of glasses into his palm. “Now, hold these for me,” he said, and traded his star shaped sunglasses. With delicate claws, he held Madison’s glasses up to his eyes, jerking his head back a little in surprise. “Dang, you look through these?”
Beau laughed. “Yeah, she can’t see anything without those.”
Monty folded the glasses back up and traded them for his shades again, his demeanor instantly shifting to a softer, more serious tone. “Bet she can’t, pauvre ti bête. If that’s what the world looks like for you wit’em, what do you think her world looks like without ‘em?” he asked, leveling his gaze to Beau’s.
The boy just stared blankly back at him, confirming that he hadn’t thought about like that. “I don’t know…” he said quietly.
“Ain’t you her big brother?” Beau nodded. “Well then what you doin’ takin’ away the only thing she got to see?” he said softly.
The other two boys looked on with wary interest while Beau kept his gaze on his shoes. “It was just a prank,” he insisted, hunching his shoulders.
Monty huffed a laugh. “Listen kid, if they’s anyone here who likes a good prank, it’s moi. But, they’s rules, it’s only funny so long as no one gets hurt. If your poor sister can’t even see, don’ that make it easier for her to get hurt?”
Shame started creeping along the kid’s face as his cheeks turned red, embarrassed that he’d been caught red handed in front of his friends, by one of the band members no less. All he could do was shrug.
“Look, I don’ know where you from, but I come all the way from the bayous of Louisiana, and down there, family always comes first. She gotta have someone to look up to, and that someone gotta be you.” He gave a moment for his sentiment to sink in, thankful he finally got Beau to look at him again. “That girl needs to know that someone is lookin’ out for her, especially if she gon’ be so blind as not to see without that pair of bottlecaps. Think you can do somethin’ for me?”
Beau sighed, and nodded as if he knew exactly what Monty was going to say.
“Go on and give those back to your sister, apologize, and then see if you don’ feel better stickin’ up for her instead of pickin’ on her. Think you can manage all that?” Monty gave the kid an easy smile, looking at him from over the brims of his shades.
After a deep and contemplative breath Beau nodded. “Okay,” he said, standing to address his friends. “Alright fellow pirates, it’s time to turn over a new leaf!” He saluted rather dramatically, and the other two kids promptly stood up and mimicked the gesture with a hearty ‘aye aye, captain!’
Monty clapped and ducked out, adjusting his shades. “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout! C’mon, I’ll give y’all a ride back to shore. Waters got a little rough, so hold on tight.” He eased back down the stairs and hunkered down into the ball pit, letting the three boys climb onto his back. “Ready?”
Other kids close by had paused again to watch, clamping hands over gasps of surprise as Monty carefully made his ways back to the edge of the ball pit, all three boys shouting with excitement the whole way. Once they were back on their feet he hauled himself up and out, following closely behind Beau.
By now you were clued back into the goings on, and gently let Madison know that Monty and her brother were back. She sniffled and raised her head, eyes squinting helplessly. “Beau? I can’t see you,” she whined, pinning the Freddy plush against her chest in a chokehold.
The little boy knelt down in front of his sister and clumsily set her glasses back on her nose. “Here you go Madison. I’m sorry I took them, I was trying to pull a prank on you but I didn’t know you would get scared,” he admitted, giving her a hug just as their parents rushed over with the eldest son.
Monty gave a dramatic retelling of the whole thing, and didn’t miss the doe-eyed look of awe on Madison’s face as he did. Both parents thanked him profusely, made some comments about how surprised they were he’d gotten through to their kid, and exchanged some quick small talk. As much of a reputation he had for being an ass, he knew when to be professional, and you couldn’t help but watch with your own sense of amazement. It wasn’t very often Monty got an opportunity to pass on a few words of wisdom.
Before the family departed, Monty hunkered down in front of Madison, who now looked to be in much better spirits. “Hey, Cher, you seein’ okay now?” She nodded with a polite smile. “Ça c’est bon! Glad I could help, you ain’t still afraid of me though, are you?”
Madison hesitated, and looked up at you shyly. You nodded with a sly smile, and watched as she stood up and walked two paces over to him. Her small hand raised up to gently pat the end of his snout, and then she stood up on her tippy toes and bumped her nose to his. “Boop!”
The parents both cooed and all three kids giggled, but Monty looked like he was holding back a sudden rush of tears as the full weight of his tail swished once, then twice. He cleared his throat and smiled at her, letting her hug his leg when he stood before watching the family clear out. You both stood side by side for a moment, and before the silence got awkward you blurted out, “You big softie.”
Monty rubbed at his nose affectionately, trying to keep his smile contained. “An’ I ain’t ashamed neither.”
You set your hands on your hips and looked around, frowning. “Well, now I’ve lost all the roaming attendants,” you said, thinking out loud.
“You need a hand with somethin’?” Monty asked.
The fact that he overheard you wasn’t surprising, but his offer warmed your cheeks. “Uh, well… no, I mean, I got it. Sorry, I don’t want to pull you away, I just got a little caught up there for a minute.” You felt a fluttering in your stomach, hating that you’d fumbled in front of him.
“No worries, Cher, I was jus’ on my way out. If it’s on the way I can lend a hand,” he said.
On the one hand, if you let him help you wouldn’t have to try finding another available floor attendant. On the other, it meant walking all the way back to the admin office with Montgomery. The thought made your heart skip a wild beat.
Oh what the hell. “Thank you, I have to get a stack of folders back to administration and it’s too heavy for me to make one trip. I don’t mind making two, but I have a bad feeling something important is going to get handed to me at the last minute, you know? I just want to get it done.” Now you were rambling.
Monty nodded with a smile. “That still under the entrance counter?”
“Yeah, it’s a little out of the way, I know.”
“Nah, I gotta swing by the Row before showtime. Looks like you got yourself an extra pair of hands, Cher~” He walked into the back office with you and pointed at the stack of folders about half as tall as you. “This all of ‘em?” He picked them up with both hands, letting them lean against his chest for support.
“I was only going to ask you to take half,” you said, laughing.
He pursed his lips, then took one folder off the top and handed it to you. “Here you go.” When you playfully rolled your eyes he grinned, following you down into the maintenance tunnels for a shortcut. “Haven’t seen you in a minute, what you got these beaucoup folders for?”
You peered up at him, confused. “What folders?”
“Beaucoup? You know, a lot,” he resituated the stack in his arms to accentuate his point.
“Oh,” you said dumbly, feeling bad for not recognizing the French for his accent. “Sorry, I forgot, I don’t get to hear you talk very often.” The way those last words drifted off shyly made you want to scream, why were you acting like this around him? You didn’t think he made you that nervous. “Uh, I have to pull the end of month reports for the admin department, your domain is the only one with an office big enough to keep everything together.”
He hummed thoughtfully to himself, continuing to follow behind you. “Your heart beatin’ kinda fast, Cher. You worried I’ll bite when no one’s lookin’?”
The flutter in your stomach wormed its way up your back and almost made your shoulders shake with the anticipation of his question. “W-what? No, I – ”
Monty laughed, tilting his head to see your face flush. “Easy, Cher, I ain’t serious. Got a policy against sleepin’ with staff.”
After the animatronics were upgraded to look hyper realistic, a few interesting things had happened. That’s how people explained it to you, anyway, without many details. All you really knew was that while sterile, they all had the necessities to test that theory. And Montgomery was the resident man whore.
Despite your face feeling feverish with nerves, you were able to swallow your shyness. “Is that company policy?”
“Nah, it’s mine. Made that mistake a few times,” he said, without an ounce of humor.
Once you were in the main tunnel it was a straight shot, and for a few minutes you both walked in silence, the sounds of your footsteps the only thing beyond the ambient machinery.
Suddenly Monty stopped, and reached out a hand to catch your shoulder. “Hold on a minute, Cher…”
You stopped and looked at him, your earlier anxiety tripling at the wary look on his face. “What’s wrong?” you whispered, not seeing what you should be afraid of.
“Stay behind me n’ don’ make any sudden moves,” he replied, resuming a steady and even pace forward.
You didn’t see the fucking thing until you were almost on top of it. Most of the endoskeletons had been dismantled and done away with, but the higher ups insisted on keeping at least a few for emergency situations. What emergency they could serve as a remedy for that they didn’t cause to begin with was beyond you, but up until this moment you’d never run into one rogue.
The red eyes glowed a little dim, and the rest of the machine looked absolutely lifeless. Maybe that’s what lulled you into a false sense of security, because when you looked away from it and up at Monty, it’s hand nearly snatched your arm.
With a breathless screech of terror you stumbled backwards, eyes wide and staring at the motionless endoskeleton as it was now poised to loom over you. One nimble metal hand straight out like it wanted to reach into your flesh. Tears streaked down your face as you silently shook on the floor.
“Do not move, you hear me, Cher?” Monty hissed. “Jus’ keep an eye on it and it won’ move, okay?”
Tears welled thicker as you stared at the thing, squeaking out a soft ‘okay’ while you tried so very desperately not to move. Out of the corner of your eye you could see Monty find somewhere to set your papers so they’d be out of the way, and then he snuck up behind the endoskeleton while its eyes were still on you. He moved too fast for you to see, but suddenly the red eye lights went dark and the whole thing collapsed into his massive arms.
You didn’t move an inch until he’d dragged the thing down an adjacent hallway and come back. As you started to shakily push yourself to your feet, Monty lent his hands for support until you were steady.
“You’re okay, Cher,” he said softly. The folder you’d had in your hands went flying in your terror, and Monty gingerly gathered everything up and tucked it back into the manilla folder. “I hope these don’ have to be any particular order… Cher? Hey, you alright? Cher.”
The tense bark of his voice brought you back to your senses, and you blinked several times and swallowed around the dryness of your mouth. You had stood stiff as a board, staring off at nothing as every muscle in your neck and shoulders tensed so hard you trembled. Even after you came out the stupor it felt hard to focus on anything. “Sorry…”
He handed you the folder. “C’mon, sooner we get outta here the better, huh?”
You nodded, clutching the folder to your chest all the way out of the tunnels and into the admin office. Somehow, you couldn’t shake the feeling that you had almost just become another franchise statistic.